The unexpected overheads of moving continents

by Suw on September 5, 2014

When Kevin and I realised in the New Year that we would indeed be moving from the UK to the US, most of my planning revolved around the run up to that moment when I would get on the plane to the US with a one-way ticket. With Kevin gone from early February, the workload in the UK fell mostly on my shoulders. Deciding how to get the cats moved, which shipping company to use to move our stuff, all the sorting and packing and recycling and throwing out so that we moved only what we wanted and not a heap of rubbish (insofar as is possible, of course), and all the admin associated with immigration and the winding up of my presence in the UK (including some long-overdue post-marriage admin). It was a lot to cope with.

That’s not to say that Kev sat around doing nothing, far from it — he had a new job to settle in to, a house to find and buy, a new car to buy, and all the admin associated with moving a family to a new country. There were also immigration admin on his end too. (Amusingly, Kevin had to fill out the affidavit of support, in which he signs a contract with the US government taking financially responsibility for me for 10 years or until I become US citizen. Us immigrants, so untrustworthy!) We knew it would be hard, and made harder by the fact we were apart for five months. Instead of sharing the weight of the tasks, we each had to shoulder them on our own. Again, this was expected and, tough as it was, we managed.

One of the unexpected overheads, though, was just how much time I had to devote to preparing to move. I knew there’d be stress, but I didn’t realise that I would get so very little work done for more than three months, from mid-March to the end of June when I finally did get on that plane. I got behind on Ada Lovelace Day work, despite the fantastic support that I’ve had from the Ri this year, and I got behind on my professional work. But, I thought, I’ll take a week off when I get there, and then I’ll be able to catch up.

Except things just haven’t panned out like that at all. I have not caught up, because what I didn’t bank on was the vast quantity of admin that I would have to do when I got here. And, worse, the various crises that have swept through our lives over the last two months and taken up masses of my time.

Things I didn’t expect included:

An infestation of what turned out to be chimney swift bugs has not only cost us a small fortune, it’s also taken up a lot of time as I have had to find a company to treat our house, and then deal with all those treatments. I now need to find a chimney sweep and arrange to get the final treatment to eradicate the stubborn hangers-on.

Our furniture and possessions have taken three months to arrive, instead of two, and I have had to chase up the shipping company (if you’re curious, it’s AngloPacific, Schumacher Logistics, AK Connect and Best Value (out of Chicago), in descending order of subcontractordom and therefore competence and levels of care). Our stuff finally arrived Tuesday and too much of our delicate, irreplaceable stuff is broken. Furniture has mostly arrived damaged. This means that I now have to start documenting issues so that I can claim on insurance.

My Social Security Number didn’t come when it should, so I’ve only just got it, eight weeks after I arrived, after re-applying for it at the local Social Security Office. Of course, this is after wasting time searching the web for information about what to do when it didn’t come, and then trying to get through to the national helpline that couldn’t help at all.

With no SSN, I have not been able to get a bank account, and thus still don’t have a mobile phone or health insurance. Figuring out the latter is a big job, and quite a scary one.

A court case I started in the UK pursuing an unpaid invoice has been a massive time suck because, contrary to the government’s assertion that you can manage a small claim online through their portal, you actually can’t and have to do a lot by post. Not being in the UK has made this tricky and very stressful.

A project to refinish the floors in our front bedroom went horribly awry when Grabbity decided to go wade through the varnish. I can laugh about this now, but it’s taken two months to re-sand the floors and get back to the point where we can re-varnish them. Again, a massive time suck, and it means that I’ve not had an office to work in which has caused me a lot of problems with my back.

Then there are the smaller stresses, the neighbour who plays loud music late and night sometimes, the other neighbour who bizarrely cuts off bits of our tree and leaves them on the lawn, the unexpected cost of a tire blow-out, the not being able to drive and thus being a little bit more stuck than I had thought I would be, the irritating transaction fee of 2.99% that Lloyds Bank charges me for the privilege of accessing my own money. And on, and on.

All of this stuff that’s going on, the big stuff and the little stuff, has taken and continues to take time away from Ada Lovelace Day and, importantly, from my own work.

I have had the challenge of rethinking my entire business to work here in the US. I came up with a good plan in February, but now we’re in September and I’m still behind on execution. I’m shifting from face-to-face consulting to online teaching, and I have been trying to finish up my first online course about how to write your own social media strategy. It’s hard going, retooling an entire business, but I’m confident it will work well. I spent a lot of time in April talking to my network about what sort of training they wanted, and have a fair bit of interest in this project and others, but it takes a lot of time to put together a good course. Time which I have simply not had enough of.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, for a few reasons, really. I’ve been having a bit of a hard time of it, over the last month especially, and just writing about it is cathartic. It makes me feel better and, right now, that’s as good a reason as any. But I also want to provide a bit of context for those of you who are either wondering why I haven’t been in touch, or to whom I owe email (I’m fed up of starting my email responses with, “I’m sorry to taking so long to reply”), or who are waiting for something from me. I am sorry for taking so long.

To be very clear, I do love it here in Sheboygan. I don’t regret moving at all. Our house is lovely, and will be lovelier when our small unwelcome guests have left, our DIY is done, and our stuff is tidied away. I love it that the cats have so much space to run around in and that they are so happy here. I love it that we’re just a five minute walk from Lake Michigan, and I love how weird it is to hear the sounds of the seashore without smelling the smells (it’s a freshwater lake, after all). I love the restaurants here and the kind, friendly people we’re meeting. I love all the great little towns nearby that we can visit, and the beautiful countryside in between them. I am fundamentally delighted that we’ve moved.

It’s just that the transition has been harder than I anticipated, and it will take me longer than I thought to settle in, because sometimes life just starts slapping you round the face with a wet haddock and doesn’t seem to want to stop. It will stop eventually, of course, I’m just not sure when.

Yes, I’m trying not to let myself get too sucked in to what’s going on in Bárðargbunga, but I am trying to stay aware of what’s going on. Wish I had the time to track it as comprehensively as I did for Eyjaf, but alas, alac, that is not going to happen!

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